I have a confession: I once built a drop-down with 47 items. Don’t do this. A drop-down list is like a spice—a little adds flavor, a lot ruins the soup. If you have more than five or six sub-items, you’re better off creating a dedicated landing page with its own navigation.
Remember, your goal is clarity, not a scavenger hunt. A good rule of thumb: if the drop-down extends below your screen edge, you’ve gone too far. Users will scroll, curse your name, and then bounce to a competitor’s site.
The “Mega Menu” illusion: pretty but dangerous
You’ve seen those huge, grid-like drop-downs on fancy e-commerce sites—columns, images of waffle makers, and a call-to-action button. Those are called mega menus. They look cool, but they’re also a performance drag if you’re not careful. Each image in that mega menu is a request to your server, and suddenly your site loads like it’s running through molasses.
How to Create a Dropdown Menu in WordPress - AccessWP
If you must use a mega menu, compress your images. And don’t, for the love of all that is holy, put a video in there. I once saw a drop-down with a 4K video background. The owner asked me why their site took 12 seconds to load. You know why, Dave.
